Edwin Ardener
Encyclopedia
Edwin Ardener was a British social anthropologist and academic. He was also noted for his contributions to the study of history. Within anthropology, some of his most important contributions were to the study of gender
, as in his 1975 work in which he described women as "muted" in social discourse.
A graduate of the LSE
, Ardener took up an Oxford lectureship in social anthropology at the invitation of E. E. Evans-Pritchard
. His ethnographic research
concentrated on Africa, particularly on Cameroon
. His history of the Bakweri of Cameroon in the nineteenth century is regarded as definitive.
One of his best-known contributions to anthropology came in the 1975 article ""The Problem" revisited", in Perceiving women, a volume edited by his wife and fellow anthropologist Shirley Ardener. In this essay he advanced the theory that women have been a muted group
, comparatively unheard in social discourse, whose relative silence might also be seen as a function of the dominant group's deafness to them. He identified a problematic tendency in anthropological methodology to talk only to men and about women, thereby ignoring at least half the sample of people they were supposed to be observing. Ardener diagnosed the problem as a result of the fact that ethnographic methods were both devised and verified by male anthropologists, who did not realise what they were overlooking.
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
, as in his 1975 work in which he described women as "muted" in social discourse.
A graduate of the LSE
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
, Ardener took up an Oxford lectureship in social anthropology at the invitation of E. E. Evans-Pritchard
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology...
. His ethnographic research
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
concentrated on Africa, particularly on Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
. His history of the Bakweri of Cameroon in the nineteenth century is regarded as definitive.
One of his best-known contributions to anthropology came in the 1975 article ""The Problem" revisited", in Perceiving women, a volume edited by his wife and fellow anthropologist Shirley Ardener. In this essay he advanced the theory that women have been a muted group
Muted group theory
Muted Group Theory developed out of the cultural anthropology field, but more recently has been developed in communication mostly as a feminist and cross-cultural theory...
, comparatively unheard in social discourse, whose relative silence might also be seen as a function of the dominant group's deafness to them. He identified a problematic tendency in anthropological methodology to talk only to men and about women, thereby ignoring at least half the sample of people they were supposed to be observing. Ardener diagnosed the problem as a result of the fact that ethnographic methods were both devised and verified by male anthropologists, who did not realise what they were overlooking.